1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a documents control apparatus that controls electronic documents (documents), and more particularly, to a documents control apparatus that can share the attributes of documents with another documents control apparatus so as to search, classify, and control the documents based on their attributes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, documents control apparatuses that control electronic documents (documents) are known.
In such a documents control apparatus, a method of supporting the analysis of documents by searching, classifying, and controlling the documents based on their bibliographic information such as the title, the drafting date, and the updating date of the documents is known. A method of supporting the analysis of documents by attaching keywords and/or a portion of the documents to the documents as the bibliographic information is also known. A method of automatically extracting the keywords and/or the portion of the documents, which makes the registration of the documents to the system easy, is also known.
There are documents control apparatuses that allow a user to define information to be associated with the documents in addition to information already prepared in advance.
As is described above, in the case of the documents control apparatus according to related art, the user can define attributes including an attribute item and its type. When or after registering a document, the user can input the attribute of the document or can cause the documents control apparatus to automatically input the attribute of the document.
A method of defining an attribute by combining a plurality of items of the bibliographic information and the other associated information described above is known. In this method, the name of the new attribute is defined, and a plurality of items and their data types are designated. According to the above method, it is possible to increase or decrease the items, and edit the items and their data types, if necessary. When registering and updating the documents, the user can select the item and input a value that fits the data type of the item.
A method of searching a document using the bibliographic information and attribute of the document is conventionally known. Using this method, the user can designate a search condition and extract documents that satisfy the search condition. Further, a method of classifying, and analyzing, documents based on the bibliographic information and attribute of the documents is also known.
A system in which two or more documents control apparatuses share the attributes of documents is also known.
Also known is a system that, when a document is copied or moved, for example, between documents control apparatuses, if the receiving documents control apparatus already has the same attribute as that of the document, the same attribute is assigned to the document; if the receiving documents control apparatus does not have the same attribute, an existing attribute or a newly generated attribute is assigned to the document (see Japanese Patent Laid-open Application No. 2002-123506).
Furthermore, a method of copying the attribute of the document, in the case that the receiving documents control apparatus does not have the same attribute as that of the document to be copied or moved is known.
Japanese Patent Laid-open Application No. 8-16553 discloses an invention in which a plurality of document processing apparatuses share and edit a document file. When the document processing apparatus edits and modifies a document file, the document processing apparatus requests a control apparatus that retains the document file to lock the modified document data page and corresponding page control table. The control apparatus, in response to the request, locks the modified document data page and the corresponding page control table, and prohibits another document processing apparatus from accessing them. The control apparatus updates them and unlocks them. The control apparatus informs the other document filing apparatuses opening the document file of the information of the update.
Japanese Patent Laid-open Application No. 7-85007 describes an invention in which when a plurality of document processing apparatuses access a document stored in a control apparatus, the document processing apparatus determines whether the document is accessible. When a document processing apparatus that is authorized to access the document accesses the document, the control apparatus protects the document from undesired modification by controlling the history of access executed by each document processing apparatus.
Japanese Patent Laid-open Application No. 2002-140344 discloses an invention in which a control apparatus receives from a document processing apparatus the information of editing a document and corresponding comments, and updates the document based on the information of the edit. At the same time, the control apparatus extracts the information of updating by comparing the document before and after the update, and stores the information of updating and corresponding comments as the history of the update. A plurality of document processing apparatuses connected with each other via a network can efficiently edit and update the document, and control the history of updates by, in response to a request from a user, displaying the information of updating and corresponding comments.
In the case of such a conventional system, if the attribute of documents commonly shared by a plurality of documents control apparatuses is changed by a documents control apparatus, the other documents control apparatuses can no longer share the attribute of the documents since the documents control apparatus no longer has the same attribute. In addition, the user cannot know which attribute is shared. Accordingly, the user does not know whether, if the user edits the attribute of a specific document, the edit affects the sharing of the attribute of the specific document, and how the attribute of the specific document is to be edited so as not to affect the sharing.